The history of skating goes back to the early 1700’s when inline skates were no more than wheels attached to bits of wood. The very first ever recorded inventor of Inline Skates was Jean-Joseph Merlin in 1760, his inline skates had metal wheels (nice!).

In 1819 the French started making a 3 wheeled version of the Inline skate but this was difficult to turn or move backwards on. This was all to change in the 1860’s when a brilliant inventor called James Leonard Plimpton designed and patented the first quad skates “Rocker Skate”. He continued to revolunise the skating industry by opening America’s first roller skating rink and founded Americas first rollerskating association.

In 1876 William Bown with the help of Joseph Henry Hughes patented and designed the bearing system for wheels. Joseph Henry Hughes later patented a bearing design used in motorbikes, later adapted and used in todays modern skates and skateboards. 1876 also saw the toe stop system patented, which is still used on quads skates today. Between 1880-1890 Levant Richardson founded Richardson Ball Bearing and Skate Company, he patented the use of steel bearings in skates and sold skates to skating professionals of that time.

In 1979 Brennan and Scott Olson updated the design of a pair inline skates they found by attaching ice hockey boots to them. These were used to train Ice hockey players without the need for ice.

Rollerblade Inc was founded in 1980 by Scott Olson. Quad skates lost popularity over Inline skates towards the beginning of the 90’s, probably due to the influence of Scott Olson’s Rollerblade. Today people still use the incorrect term “Rollerblading” instead of the correct term of “Inline Skating”.

Skating is now considered a serious sport and has many disciplines from recreational skating, speed skating and slalom to roller hockey and aggressive skating.  With the number of people taking up inline skating increasing each year.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 4:34 am
and is filed under FAQs.